It was Friday night, and I had just left the other teachers of the maths department in the pub. As it is always nicer to sleep in one's own bed, I had elected to depart a little early and take the bus home.
Arriving at the bus stop, I noted a pair of lanky youths hunched beneath the shelter. Normally I would give a wide berth to any stray, gangly, hooded night creatures, but I needed to scan the timetables and so stepped inside. Coming closer, I felt their gaze upon me. I risked a glance in the corner of my eye: they were students from my school.
I felt a little relief - my own students were unlikely to start on me - but as the bus would not be there for some time, I would have to make conversation.
"Evening lads. Having a good night?"
The boys bore a scabrous, pointy-eared grin. These are 14 year olds who lurk at the back of the classroom. In lessons, they will banter and squabble, hide each other's property and snigger oafishly. They will chew gum, fiddle with mobiles, doodle all over their books, and make paper planes. They will interrupt and argue and show outrage if accused of any wrongdoing. They will do pretty much anything, in fact, except follow my instructions.
"Orroight, Sir?"
They were polite - well... friendly, at least. Polite is relative. I recognised the look of blank amazement common to students who encounter a teacher outside of school, like a sheepdog meeting a camel. There is obviously a relationship between the student and teacher, but, out of context, neither party knows what the rules are going to be.
We opened by establishing that, yes, I had been to the pub and, yes, I had been drinking, three pints as it happens and, yes, it was with the maths department but, no, Mr Featherweight isn't gay, at least I don't think so but, okay, he is a bit camp but that doesn't mean he's gay and, no, I don't know where he lives and I wouldn't tell you if I did.
Then I asked them what they had been doing. I did not expect the answer: ice-skating.
"Seriously?" I asked. They were serious. They proudly got out their ice-skates to show me. "These cost three hundred quid!" one boasted. "You're kidding!?" I replied. They weren't kidding. "And you kids claim you can't afford calculators," I sighed.
Ice-skating! These boys, whose behaviour in class is chaotic and lumpen, enjoy a pastime which is all about control and grace.
The main difference between a grade B student and a grade D student is not intellectual capacity but attitude to learning. In maths, many a grade D student is perfectly capable of grasping the concepts and learning the techniques to get grade B, but for some reason they reject the possibility. Perhaps they are afraid of failure; perhaps the mental conflict inherent in deposing old notions and installing new ones makes them anxious; perhaps their low self esteem means they do not believe they can succeed, so trying to learn would not be worth the effort.
Many support their decision not to learn with the claim that mathematics is irrelevant to their lives. They are probably right, but in reality most of what we learn in school is irrelevant. This does not mean learning is unimportant. It is not the forgettable stuff we learn which matters; it is the process of learning itself which brings us greater mental prowess and expanded horizons.
Mathematics is an important subject to study because it connects together different facets of thought and encourages abstract reasoning in a way which is not encountered in any other discipline. One may forget how to do long division or work out the angles in a triangle, but the thinking involved exercises bits of our brains which we will use throughout our lives.
It is therefore sad that these boys, who love the control and grace of skating, may never perceive the control and grace of mathematics.
It is also sad that, of these whole people, I only get to see that part which is defensive and aggressive, bored and boring, rejected and rejecting. I never see the part which is generous, luminous and full of grace.
